


blood ties

by fleetingblossom



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2582948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleetingblossom/pseuds/fleetingblossom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had insisted upon being useful, and this was by far the most useful thing she could have done, her blood the fine line that separated them from maelstroms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood ties

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012. Revised and finished 11/07/2014.

❝You've made the air flammable. These walls are just paper. And blood is gasoline.  
You shouldn't have come here, made of fireworks, if you didn't want me to play with fire. I need a light.❞  
— [I Wrote This For You](http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2009/11/tender-tinder-box.html)

He could almost taste her blood when he ran his tongue over the edges of his teeth, taste it from the white of her nape peeking out from under her kimono, her wrists from her sleeves. Sweet, so sweet—his hands were shaking, sweating as she rose to bow to him, her own hands clasped in front of her. Her blood was singing, veins blue against white, heart pulsing heavy.

“Sannan-san? Is the food not to your liking?”

Plunged into cold water, he looked away, the half-eaten bowl of porridge tasteless, forgotten. “No, it is fine, Yukimura-kun. I am not hungry anymore.” The expression on her face was quizzical, but she took the bowl from him anyways, fingertips warm as they brushed against his skin. He could not stop himself, his mind racing to catch the echoes of her heartbeat fluttering.

This was not something he had gotten himself accustomed to, being acutely aware of his limbs moving, his heart pounding, the rush of blood flooding his ears, the awareness of being alive, the tremble of his lips as the lungs exhaled, the openings and closings of his eyes, calculated when it had once been autonomous.

This, though, he thought, perhaps he could come to know, his own body’s rhythms, but he didn’t think for a moment he could ever get to being acutely aware of the others around him, the inhales and exhales of breath, the blood that flowed through them, as the hunger settled at the pit of his stomach, a weight heavy and cold with dread.

Couldn’t get used to the way she spoke as her heart pumped on, iron and steel. “I shall leave you alone, then. Good night, Sannan-san.” She smiled, dipping her head slightly, her fragrance lingering even after she had gone.

Part of him longed to smear her paper thin skin red, her sweet, sweet blood singing for him. How he craved this, even in dreams, waking up from feigned sleep in cold sweat and quick breath. Part of him knew he was better than they were, and he pretended not to notice the way the others looked at her, her heart undone by their dirty eyes and wolf teeth glinting.

“I—I’m sorry. I know that I am not supposed to be out of my room.” She bowed, once, twice, and he could almost taste the fear on her skin, the confusion, her heartbeat erratic, instincts unable to decide whether she should have run away from him or stay, a lamb offered for slaughter.

“It is getting cold. Please take care, Sannan-san.” The breeze was cold as she walked away, her small back looking surprisingly lonely as he found himself frozen, left arm reaching out after her receding shadow. It was the first time he had not been aware of his body, the way his bones creaked as he moved, the rustle of hair falling into place.

She was always like this, an open book with her pages waiting to be written on, expression perpetually startled, limbs shaking and uncomfortable, the hairs at the back of her hand standing up. Her actions were kind, immeasurably kind to the point that it was a burden—she was a burden. Her hair caught the wind as she turned the corner.

Humid summer would give way for a cold winter and bright spring again, her presence adapting to them, a hot cup of tea and conversation at dinner. If she had seen the monsters they had become on the battlefield, she spoke nothing of it, quietly going about her business.

The touch of her skin would send his nerves in a panic, however briefly it would have been, too afraid to reach out for her. He would eat her alive, he was sure of it, far more sure than the rest who sank their predatory teeth into her skin.

So he chose instead to focus on research, the methods and theories and procedures more than enough to put his mind away from her as he locked himself in his room.

The nights were dangerously long, the smell of iron and damp earth.

Yet, even distance could not keep the idea of her away from him—she had become far more than just her blood and her limbs, slight frame growing thin under clothes that didn’t fit. It was in the way the others lit up when her name was mentioned, her name on their lips, casual in the way he knew he could never be.

She flinched and pulled away as though he had hit her, her breath quickening, a leaf left in the wind. “Be careful,” had been all he had said, a warning about the wolves that could have easily eaten her alive. Yet she shrank away from him and ran into the arms of the others—if she had not noticed, he had, the details weaving together a far clearer picture than she could have ever done.

He knew that they had taken her blood, her sweet, sweet blood, metallic and soiled on their lips, her unblemished skin porcelain and smoothed over. Her fingers were always lingering at a spot behind her ear, stroking absently at the heartbeat of her wrist and brushing over the nape of her neck. He gripped her wrist a little too hard, the shadow of a bruise fleeting as she jerked away, deer eyes shining. “If that is all, I will be taking my leave, Sannan-san.”

He had not noticed when her words had turned into bitter almond cyanide, but fear, perhaps, changed people far easier than anything else. Pushing his glasses back up, he could not find the voice in him to ask her to stay, as the others must have had, their scent black ink on white skin, his hand on the hilt of his blade.

The first time he tasted her blood, it had taken all of him not to tear her to shreds, on accident, on purpose, and she had been so afraid he pushed himself away from her, his fingers curled around her wrist. “Are you afraid?” Her fingers flexed under his grip, her eyes big and round, the shattered bowl she had reached to pick up dripping wet and red.

It had sung to him and had been so sweet, so red, the memory fleeting as he ran his tongue over the corner of his lips, looking for drops he could have missed in his haste. She was trembling again, lips pressed together tightly, her eyes refusing to meet his. “Let me go.”

And so he did, and she ran, her footsteps hurried and heavy down the hallway Hijikata had forbidden her from ever visiting.

(But she still did, crooning over Heisuke, the scent of her blood enough to drive the minds of the sanest into ribbons and grasping straws. They looked the other way, her blood the fine line that separated them from maelstroms.)

No matter how hard he scrubbed, her blood lingered and he bit his tongue until he bled, the wound closing just as soon as the pink of his hands, clawed raw. He was a man obsessed, the memory slipping through his fingers as though it had been water and more, he craved more.

 “Sannan-san, I’m not.” It took him a moment to understand these words were whispered in a passing, her eyes downcast and away from his gaze, though she was fully well aware that he had been listening. She was lying, for her hands could not keep still, wringing incessantly as she walked. “If you ever need it, I can help.”

And why wouldn’t she, he realized.

She had insisted upon being useful, and this was by far the most useful thing she could have done, offering the blood that she had to those who needed it. She was far too kind not to, and to reject a request, that was not her way, though she was far from unafraid.

“Why?” The hairs on her skin stand up as he flicked his tongue to chase after the drop that had slid down onto her wrist, her pulse warm as he pressed his mouth against the wound that wasn’t there anymore. She pulled away, an animal injured, hastily lowering her eyes.

“Because it will make you feel better,” she stated quietly, pulling the sleeve of her _kosode_ back over her arm, the cut long gone by now. She traced her fingers across where it had been, the whisper of skin against skin not going unnoticed to him, and she looked a million miles away.

He turned to ask her, as he did every time, eyeglasses glinting in the light to obscure his thoughts while he asked for hers, “Are you afraid?” The sound of her blade sliding back in its sheath, the rustle of her clothing, she stood up and bowed, never looking at him, never asking questions.

“No. I am not a child, Sannan-san.” The door slid open, and this time her footsteps were deliberate, as though she could not decide whether she should have stayed with him or not, that if she had walked away slowly enough, her thoughts could have caught up to her.

That was what he would have liked to think, licking his lips in vain to quell the desire.

She spoke as she always did, softly, carefully, eyes downcast. “Rasetsu use up in a minute what a human would take years to do.” She slid one of the many books she had brought back from her home in front of him, her wrist blue and ivory, her father’s writing very much like hers.

Yet her hands were unsteady, hesitant when she picked up the brush, unlike the way her father wrote, her fear overwhelming her. Her hand was on his shoulder, the intimacy of the gesture surprising as she lingered there for a moment. “Leave me alone, Yukimura-kun.” When he had reached to return it, their fingers missed by inches and she did not turn back to him.

“Good night, Sannan-san. Take care, the night is cold.” For a long time, he was the waves and she the shore, pushing and pulling but never meeting halfway. She cared far too much and he too little, locked in the airtight room, the darkness seeping through the crevices of his fingers, into where his eyes once were.

The noise hurt, frost against her pale, pale skin as the blood trickled down, his heart loud and distracting as he brought his lips to it, her heart a pleasant lull, white noise against the loud drumming. This would drown out the nuances, the voices hushing. She slid the sword across her skin again, her body letting out a sigh he did not know she was holding in.

“Are you afraid?” he would ask once more, sweat beading his forehead and the taste of metal lingering, sweet, sweet, so sweet, he could have swallowed her whole, ripped open her chest for the black birds to flutter out.

“No.”

“You shouldn’t come here anymore.”

She searched his eyes for an answer he could not give her, and she smudged the blood at the corner of his mouth while his fingers searched her body for puncture wounds that would never be there. The smile on her face was faint, for she knew, and he knew, that he would come again.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He would come to her, wolf eyes and begging her to let him in.

 


End file.
